​Minding mental health on campus

October 16, 2016

​Minding mental health on campus

A bouncy castle at the University of Auckland's city campus raises awareness for mental health. Photo: River Lin

The well-being of poverty-stricken university students is at stake, and experts fear many more are slipping through the cracks.

A report drawing on a range of statistics and case studies into student hardship by the Child Poverty Action Group suggests more needs to be done.

Max Lin, the author of the study and student hardship spokesperson for the organisation, said poverty was only "the tip of the iceberg".

"A lot of the students are almost too embarrassed to come forward because they've internalised the shame of living in poverty."

Mr Lin believes there is more beyond the numbers.

"Some of the worst-hit students are living in poverty, so they don't have enough money to go out and form social networks – they actually drop out of uni altogether. You might be like, 'This is actually not that bad,' because the worst hit aren't actually captured by the data."

Linsey Higgins, the national president of the New Zealand Union of Students' Associations, said more needs to be done to support students, especially in the lead-up to exams.

"We know that tertiary students are under an immense amount of pressure, especially in comparison to people 10 to 15 years ago. The lack of student support means that they're trying to juggle their study commitments as well as being able to afford to live.”

It was not the cultural norm to open up about these pressures, she said.

“We, in this society, have this idea that if you have a mental health problem, you're weak and you're not able to deal with problems and unfortunately, that can lead to a lot of discrimination. Students may not necessarily feel like they've got the capacity to seek out solutions to their issues."

Globally, things are starting to change with World Mental Health Day held last week. Members of the royal family, including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry, marked the occasion in London.

Prince William said on the day in an article in the Daily Mail: "The conclusion we are coming to is that the more we all talk about this, the more collectively as a society we can do to support one another."

A report by the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked New Zealand first out of 15 countries across the Asia-Pacific region for helping people with mental health issues in the hospital sector.

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